


Look, but don't touch

by Questioning_TrashCan



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Clusterfuck of relationships and emotions, F/F, F/M, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Foreshadowing, Ghost Terezi, Humanstuck, I'm not gonna finish this, Past Relationships, Sober Gamzee, back from the dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-04 04:59:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5321372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Questioning_TrashCan/pseuds/Questioning_TrashCan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between life and death, there lies one thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Subtle torture

It starts in complete darkness and cold. She couldn’t remember much. Or anything. She didn’t know who she was, or what was happening. Most times she tried to block out the thought that she might never know. She didn’t know when or why it happened, but eventually, oblivion ended and she was left to wander the mortal world, unseen. Most times she ignored the fact that she’d never have what every being had been granted – existence.

This girl was dead. A ghost, to be exact. It was as simple as that. She was someone who saw everything in black and white – everything fell into one category or the other. So when she found that her usually invisible body was glowing a soft teal in the corner between a dresser and the wall, her knees drawn to her chest, she was both annoyed and relieved that she had finally crossed that line. And when she found that the man’s house she’d decided to low-key invade could see her, she wasn’t sure how to react.

It’d been another completely ordinary day for the both of them, and the relatively new resident of the house finally made it home, bags of groceries hanging from his arms and fiddling with his keys loudly. The girl heard this, but didn’t move. She was used to sounds. They were rather comforting, if she was honest.

Being the ever-cautious person that the young man was, he made sure to lock the door once again behind him, before flinging his backpack unceremoniously onto the floor just a few feet from him. He yawned, and stretched out his arm behind him to rub the sore-from-standing tailbone. He shrugged off his jacket, and threw it with expert precision to the hook upon the wall, where it landed and situated itself perfectly. He ruffled his own hair a bit, and then made his way into his bedroom. 

When he had bought this apartment, he was so ecstatic to finally be living on his own, to not depend on Dad to pay for his housing anymore. He was an adult, and he got his first own home at such a great price! At first he didn’t understand why it was so much cheaper than the rest of the lofts in the building, or any other buildings around it. It seemed nice enough, but the crotchety old landlord warned him, “You best be careful, boy, there’s danger in that place. For the past many years all the folks who’ve bought it have been leavin’ fast as they could…” He, being a well-read prankster himself, noted the landlord as just an old trickster looking to get his goat. But after over a month of living there, he now knew why. And it wasn’t a trick at all. However, this particular young bloke was a man born-and-raised on ghost stories and if anyone was well equipped to deal with a little run-of-the-mill spookiness, it was him, no doubt. He stood proudly in his room, despite his tiredness, ready to deal with whatever paranormal activity was in store for him tonight.  
It wasn’t unusual for him to be indirectly attacked by the spirit that still lingered here. She had enjoyed teasing the man, she took great joy out of messing with any mortal, really, but he was amazingly fun to torment, much to her befuddlement. She sat in the corner of his room, between the dresser and the wall, simply sitting there and smirking as usual.  
It was time to mess with him a little more. 

A book on his dresser flew off the shelf and smacked his behind before falling to the floor, and the curtains began to flutter a bit, even though the bedroom door and window were both closed. She giggled to herself, a raspy sound that echoed throughout the room. Okay, that was new. He hadn't heard the ghost before, only seen objects move on their own accord. It made it rather difficult to find things in the morning, since whatever it was seemed to have some kind of grudge against him. He was often late to work, and the mornings when nothing happened were starting to become creepier than when he found his keys in the most unlikely places. The woman stood, placing one hand on her hip as John spun around. She was still unaware that he could, in fact, now see and hear her. Being dead had somewhat healed the accident that caused her to go blind, giving her new ways to see things, though it was all still pretty vague. She could sense him looking at her, but not... seeing, as other mortals did these days.

She was a relatively normal-sized girl for her apparent age of twenty-something or late teens, her ginger hair bouncing at her shoulders and fanning out as if the strands were allergic to said shoulder. She was dressed in a black V-neck shirt that detailed the Libra star sign in the same teal she glowed, and darker jeans with no shoes. No shoes? Hmm.  
His eyes widened and his heart nearly stopped at the sight of her when he turned around, a far cry from the confident way he normally took these pranks. “Holy shit!” he gasped breathlessly. He removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes to make sure what he was seeing was real and not some hallucination. He placed the lenses back on his face as he blinked and tried to get a closer look at the…”You’re a lady ghost?” he asked with an air of surprise. 

His jet black hair framed his face nicely, and appeared to be very fluffy everywhere else, giving the illusion that his head was a bit bigger than what it actually was. He was still in his work clothes, the buttons of his black collared shirt undone for easy removal when he decided to take a shower. This new development had stopped him in his tracks.  
Her smirk fell in an instant and she uncrossed her arms, raising one again to point at herself. "Wait, you can see me?" She didn't know much about being a ghost despite being one for however long she had been stuck like this, but she knew the living still weren't supposed to see her. She looked to be in her late teens, though he couldn't be sure. Neither could she, not being able to remember anything about her life.

“Uh- I- I mean, yeah!” he stammered. “I mean, not to say that being a lady ghost is a bad thing or anything! I guess I just. I don’t know!” His brow suddenly furrowed in anger. “Hey! You’ve been the one pulling all those pranks on me, haven’t you?” His frown turned to a smirk as he stood tall and crossed his arms. “Well! I bet you thought you could get the best of ol’ John Egbert, didn’t you? But I am the pranking master.” He said this last word with a dramatic flair that she was sure would sparkle if it was written. He looked at her in confusion. “Why have you been…I mean, what’s up with you, anyway? Why have you been haunting my house and stuff?!”  
"Pranks? Haunting?" She giggled, her raspy voice creeping him out just the slightest bit. "Don't flatter yourself, kid." She crossed her arms again, leaning mostly on one foot as they talked. "I don't care that much," she smirked, leaning forward just the slightest bit, but it was enough to make him feel uncomfortable. She was starting to get up in his space already, and he didn't like it. This was probably just the set up for something bigger. 

Oh, he was onto her. He was onto her like a kitten on a fuzzy stuffed pink mouse.

A bit taken aback by her sudden shift from her huddled position in the corner to standing right in front of him, he blinked in confusion a few times. The feeling of confusion quickly left him, as he decided he was not going to be one-upped by a ghost lady. He crossed his own arms in a mimic of hers, and used his advantage of height above the female figure to look down on her from above. He tried to make it look like he wasn’t expecting the inevitable showering of ghosty powers to rain down on him as he responded. “If you don’t really care then why are you here, huh?” he smirked.

"What else do you suggest I do? It's not like I have a job or friends or whatever else you have that I don't, you don't need to rub it in," she growled softly, looking up at him when she realized how much taller he was. Not that it mattered, she clearly had the advantage in another sense. She flicked her hair to the side and smirked again. "Are you that desperate for attention that you're talking to literal dead people now?" she giggled once more, taking one more step forth. All he could detect were high levels of salt in her tone.  
He thought about what she said for a moment. “Okay, granted, if I were in your situation I’d be doing the same thing…” while she was tricky, at least she seemed nice. Well okay maybe not nice. She seemed like she didn’t want to kill him, so that was good. He sighed and lowered his arms. “Well, you should be glad that I am an understanding host,” he boasted cheekily. “Because I am going to let you stay. For now. Don’t go trying to make any funny business, though, because I can get you out of here in a jiffy if I need to!”  
"Pfft, like you'd be able to get me out. I do what I want, mortal." She acted like she ran the damn place.

He approached his dresser as he began to unbutton his shirt. And then he remembered. Oh yeah. Lady ghost. He tried, unsuccessfully, to conceal the pink that flooded his cheeks as he slightly turned his head to where she was standing just moments before. “Do you mind?” he said, “I have to take a shower.” 

“Not at all, go ahead.” She smirked at his embarrassment, showing off her rows of sharper teeth than what would ever be deemed normal. John resolved to pick his things up and do his business in the bathroom, away from her. Oh god. Oh GOD. If she’s been here the whole time, how many times had she already seen him naked? Fuck! He just hoped that she had the decency to not look. 

He approached the door and was halfway out before he stopped, “What’s your name, anyway?” he asked, sounding honestly curious but also way too chill for a man with a ghost in his house.

Now she had always taken great pleasure in fucking with John, for whatever reason. She had honestly no clue. She spent most nights in his room, some part of her hoping that he would eventually see her. This was not what she was expecting when she made that wish. When he asked her name, she frowned for a moment in confusion and appeared to be thinking, as if she'd forgotten it. The possibility didn't seem that unlikely. If she'd forgotten her past life, it only made sense that she couldn't remember her name. "... Teresa?" It came out as more of a question than an answer, as if he should know it. 

Through numerous months of vigorous torment, (she wouldn't call it stalking, but it was pretty damn close) she had learned his name was John Egbert, that he was eighteen, that he had a Dad and a sister along with two friends by the name of Dave and Rose, who she had gathered were also siblings (She hadn’t been in the presence of either of them, only heard of them from John). She hadn't figured out much else, however, other than the placement of ridiculous objects in John's house that she took great joy in misplacing when he needed them. She rarely taunted any other living souls since John was just so much fun.

He stood still in the doorway, mulling over her comment. He could totally take her..! Maybe. If he tried. Well, since she didn’t seem to be causing that much trouble now, he would pocket that solution for later and hope it never came down to that. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he was a little lonely. He had been used to living with Dad and Jade his whole life- he even missed Jade’s big smelly dog- and even when he graduated high school he had hoped that perhaps Dave would take up the offer to be his roommate. Unfortunately, Dave had ended up winning some big arts scholarship that took him to a big fancy filmmaking school in California. John had hoped to get a college degree as well, he just wanted to take a break in-between finishing high school and starting yet another rigorous four years. Next semester, he made a promise to himself, he would start. For now, working would suffice. His brain got off the college train and backtracked to his loneliness. He thought that this…Teresa, he guessed, would maybe be a welcome guest among all the empty space in his home. 

“John. John Egbert,” he said, following it up with a big cheesy smile. “Try not to break anything while I shower,” he commented before walking down the hall and out of her sight.  
"Try not to break anything while I shower," she mimicked, snarling a little and raised her hand, mentally reaching out to the objects in the bathroom just to fuck with him yet again. His towel slowly moved back and forth on the railing, the showerhead shaking as the water temperature changed suddenly to a scalding hot temperature that vaguely reminded him of what he imagined molten rock would feel like.

He was humming to himself as he relished in the feeling of the warm water against his skin. The warm…warm…Hot, hot, hOT, HOT, HOT! He screamed like a baby when the pleasant feeling suddenly changed to one of intense pain. 

“Is she trying to kill me..?” he whimpered to himself after the flash of heat had subsided. His towel annoyingly flying around the bathroom now, he elected to ignore it so long as he didn’t get burned again. Well, he didn’t get burned, per se, but he had barely time to recover from his pang of heat before the water suddenly went ice cold. “HhhHHOlY SHIT!” he cried out, suddenly wondering just how the hell Captain America didn’t go apeshit on some deserving asses after being exposed to that much cold. He silently apologized to every single soul lost on the Titanic, letting them know that no one deserves such a freezing fate. Unlike the hot, however, which stayed for a split second and then left, this new cold lingered around for a minute or two. It felt like a century. He wrapped his arms around his slick wet torso and shivered, his teeth clattering like crazy. He wanted to say something, but his mouth was glued shut. Had he been thinking straight, he might’ve thought to simply get out. But the cold was messing with him, sending his body into the fight or flight response as he struggled to keep warm. It honestly made him wonder how this water was still liquid and not turning to ice as it left the nozzle.  
After a while, the water temperature finally went back to normal, and he let out a deep sigh of relief. He looked to the side and screamed once more, catching sight of what was probably the least scary thing about this adventure so far. A dumb emoticon was written into the fog on his shower door, “>:]”. What the hell does that even mean? He winced and grumbled to himself. Okay, so, maybe, just maybe eradicating the tortured soul from his home was going to be a lot more work than he had previously thought.  
She smirked to herself as she did this, and walked through the wall, standing just outside the shower with her arms crossed. It was great. She giggled as she stood there, silently wondering if she was still visible to him. Apparently she was still unseen. She smirked wider, enjoying this small slice of rare entertainment. Quality entertainment, at that. He still had the best reactions, even when he knew exactly what was causing it. 

Practically everything in his room was rearranged by the time he got out, and the bathroom cupboard was a mess. 

Being practically blind without his glasses, John didn’t even notice the rearrangement of the items in his bathroom cupboard until he tried to brush his teeth with face cream. “YEAUAGHHH!” he made a loud, disgusted sound as he immediately grabbed a loofah and tried as hard as he could to scrub the offending bitter taste off of his tongue. “Oh mah gwobd,” he said, trying to sound serious and failing miserably as his tongue was still stuck outside of his mouth for the moment. 

She stood in the corner again, deeming it the "visible edge." Okay, that was a dumb name. Never call it that aloud. It was the only place he could see her, to her knowledge, so she just stood there, waiting for him to emerge from the bathroom again. While she waited, she tried to remember exactly what her name was. Teresa didn't sound quite right. She had been going around and gathering a list of names that might belong to her, Teresa being the closest-sounding, but she couldn't place the exact name. It was frustrating. Hmm... She hadn't tried to guess her last name in a while... She knew it started with a 'P', maybe like Patton or Patterson... She gave up after a while.

John threw on his pajamas, not even taking into account that a ghost might not be exactly intimidated by an eighteen-year-old boy- man! Man, he was a man now- in Ghostbusters PJs that he had gotten as an “ironic” gift for a birthday three years ago. He marched into his room, and saw the offending entity curled over in a fit of hysterical laughter in his corner. “Teretha,” he shouted, “You gonna with you hadnm dom tha!” He didn’t know exactly what he was going to do to make her wish she hadn’t done that, but he knew that if anyone could come up with a zany revenge plot it would be him. And oh, oh would it be juicy… 

She was laughing too hard to care about his threats- or what would be threats if she were intimidated by him. She simply sat there in the corner, apparently not strong enough to stand anymore, quite literally keeling over in laughter. Anyone hearing said laughter out of context would've thought they'd died and gone to hell where all the psychopaths and maniacs hung. That was just her kind of voice. It took her a while and several more threats (which only fuelled her laughter more), but she finally calmed down, and stood back up in the corner. She wasn't done with him quite yet.

He stormed to his bed, plopped down and swaddled himself in the covers. Then, he threw the covers back off himself, marched just as angrily to the light switch, turned it off, and then stomped back to bed. “OOF!” he exclaimed as he tripped over something that hadn’t been there before, and landed straight onto his bed with an audible “PLOP!” and in the awkward position of his rump extending far above the rest of him. He growled, and settled into his blankets once more. “Fuck off,” he mumbled as he buried his face in his pillow.  
After a few long seconds of silence and lack of motion other than the steady rise and fall of his chest, he felt something against his one exposed foot, and upon inspection, realized it was a spider. A live one. A massive, living breathing spider with fangs and spindly legs and venom fit for assassinating the Queen.  
Spiders. It had to be god damn spiders. And it wasn’t even a big fuzzy tarantula, no. Those he was okay with, ever since Jade’s crash course on relatively harmless animals when he was 7. It was a motherfucking black widow spider. Although it was tiny and his foot seemed miles away from his face, he could still spot the hint of red upon its slick black back. Female black widow spiders; they could kill a man with just one bite. So, naturally, John did the only thing that he could think to. He screamed. He flailed his feet about, trying to get the evil arachnid off, but all his shaking and panicking only made it hold on harder. Then he thought to himself, what do you do with bad bugs? You squish them. So, he picked up the nearest squishing object- a gargantuan, unabridged copy of Colonel Sassacre’s Daunting Text of Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery that had been sitting on his nightstand- and slammed it hard against his feet. Maybe not the brightest idea, but holy hell was he tired, and fuck if that wasn’t a valid excuse for not thinking straight. He made a squeaking sound in the absurd amount of pain he was experiencing. He just slammed a book that was big enough to kill a cat down on his own foot. “AUGHGUAAAHH!” he exclaimed. At least, he thought, the spider must be dead. He lifted the book up to see if the squashed spider carcass was laying on his foot or perhaps stuck to the back of the book… There was no spider. There never was. God DAMN IT.

The ghost girl was nowhere in sight, having moved from the corner. She giggled to herself again, her stomach sore from all the laughing, but she was simply having too much fun to stop. She never got this rush when she bothered other humans. The window was open, giving way to a very cold gust of wind that appeared out of seemingly nowhere as he forcibly calmed himself from the paranormal attack.

Terezi was just about done at this point, and wandered back to her corner, laughing harder than she ever had. She didn't know what exactly made it so much more entertaining since John had figured out what she was, but it really was. It kind of made her think; did she know him before she died? Was she just attached to the house? Did he know her and was just withholding information for her own good? Did she have to remember it herself? She stopped laughing and sighed, sinking to the floor again and bringing her knees to her chest, resting her chin on said knees and just... Watching him. It was a little unnerving to see it, more so to think that this was how every night went. He could only assume she did this every day.

After the spider incident, he was extremely wary. He lay awake in bed, eyes wide open, poised and ready for the next attack. The horrible, awful attack… That never came. He must’ve stayed up a good 30 minutes before his adrenaline wore out and his exhaustion took hold, and he drifted into a deep sleep. A sleep plagued with nightmares about spiders and ghosts and whatnot, but sleep, nonetheless. He guessed she was done with him for the night. ‘What horrors await me, I wonder?’, was his first thought as he woke up, yawning and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

He didn’t know how long he could cope with this underlying subtle torture.


	2. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things happen

Everything seemed to be in order. The girl was nowhere in sight, leading him to believe that she was going to leave him alone for a while. Just to be safe, he decided to get up and look around for any traps or set-ups. Nothing. That was somehow more worrying than finding something. Teresa had gone out to haunt some other people while she waited for him to get up, and still wasn't back. Realizing it was now broad daylight outside, she started making her way back.

John swiftly took advantage of the momentary silence. He jumped up on the bed, doing his best impression of a ninja, and jumped off right next to his dresser to get ready for the day, making audible ninja sounds as he did. “Hi-cha! Hiya! Hyeaaah!” He was dressed in less than a minute, and proudly strode out of his room to make himself some victory breakfast in the kitchen. Fucking dork.

It took Teresa a while, considering how far she'd wandered off, but she finally got there, just as the guy was finishing his breakfast. Damn, she'd missed out on so many opportunities. She won't let this stand. His plate started to shake, taking the food on it with it when it lifted in the air suddenly and flipped over, the classic assortment of eggs, bacon and one lone slice of heavily buttered toast on both sides with the crusts cut off raining down on him from above. He winced at the action, then grumbled, plucking the ceramic off of his head and marching to the sink. 

“Welcome back,” he muttered under his breath. He put the plate down, leaned over his sink, and picked the small pieces of egg off of his shirt, off of his face, and out of his hair. She giggled to herself freely at the sight of him covered in his food, then wandered off to mess with some other people again, not even taking into account what he would be doing. She ignored his hinted complaint completely, and walked from his house, not even bothering to float. It'd been a while since she walked around on foot. She could fly, but that took all the fun out of it, according to her. She was already gone by the time he spoke again “Heyyy… I’ve… Got to go to work now!” he said as loudly as he could, before quickly packing his things and exiting out the front door, locking it behind him, in a record time that he had been trying to achieve so as to avoid the ghoul’s morning antics.

However, he had another motive for wanting to be out of her sight soon as possible, as well. Before he actually began to leave his building, he whipped out his phone, and typed in the passcode ever-engrained into his brain. ‘0,4,1,3…’ he always thought to himself as he did it. He opened the ever trusty Google, and asked a very important question of the engine. “What is a good way to annoy a ghost?” he typed in, and hit search. First result, “How to Piss Off a Ghost,” yesssss. He grinned to himself as he soaked in the knowledge as he scanned the article, ready to make some important pit stops on the way home and wreak some major havoc when he returned.

John worked at a prank shop. Of course he did, it was his lineage! The Tricksters Trick Store was opened by his very own grandmother, back in the olden days...like, the 1950s. However, after his grandmother tragically lost both her life and her store in a meteor accident, his father decided to take up a simple, safe business job instead to raise his children. Joke shops seemed to be a thing of the past... Until the Tricky Japey Jester opened downtown, which, admittedly, did not have as good a name or as good a stock as his grandmothers’ store had, but it was a joke shop nonetheless. John worked full-time, earning the honour of Employee of the Month consecutively since he'd been working there. He made enough to live a comfortable life alone, as well as save up for the inevitability of college that would face him next semester, when he would start working part-time.

As much as he took pride in his pranking skills, he was beginning to become sick of jokes in general, due to the uninvited guest inhabiting his home. And now he was going to a place full of nothing but jokes. Awesome.

He begrudgingly drove downtown, stopping at a Starbucks along the way where the ‘basic white girl’ stereotype of a barista screwed up first his order, and then his name. No matter, he continued his drive to work while sipping out of his Frappuccino labelled "Juan". He made it to work on time, for the first time in weeks. Thus, he was greeted by his co-workers – co-worker, only one other person was there- with laughter and "Haha! Wow John, didn't you get the memo? When you get Starbucks it's required to be exactly fifteen minutes late." He glared at her, before his glare broke into a smile and a laugh of his own. 

"Don't test me, I've had an impossibly rough night..." He sounded tired and a little sunken.

“A) I won’t bug you about the coffee because you sound like you’ve been hit by a bus, and B) I’m going to be an immature little shit and make an innuendo about what happened during that, and I quote, “Rough night” of yours. So John, What did happen to make your night so impossibly rough?”

“A) Thanks. B) Oh damn. I seriously thought you were going to be a decent human being sensitive to the needs of others today. Please refrain from getting my hopes up like that, it’s so cruel on your part.”

“You sound so freaking intellectual when you’re tired.”

“I’m like this all the time.” She eyed him.

“Aisle three needs stocking,” she reached under the counter to pull a box of rubber chickens that made an impossibly obnoxious sound when squeezed around the belly, and handed it to him.

He took the box and placed it down in said aisle, then went to the back to finish his drink. He looked around at the gag items and eccentricities that had once intrigued him so, and he grunted. "At least I don't have to worry about these babies flying off the shelf to attack me..." He murmured before hitting plastic bottom and slurping bubbles. "...I hope..."

Teresa smirked to herself as she – out of sheer boredom – wandered around and eventually found a rather busy restaurant and walked inside, taking a decent survey of the area before proceeding to wreak havoc. The whole place was cleared out in minutes, closed down for the rest of the day due to a paranormal disturbance, and even put on the news. She felt a little proud of herself for this accomplishment, and more than a lot smug. Whatever her past life was like, this had to be better, she thought.

Teresa had inevitably gotten bored again, rather too quickly for her own liking. Being a ghost that required no sleep or any physical necessities could be a pain sometimes, if not excruciatingly boring. As so she honed in on John's location, which for some reason she was able to do? Maybe because she'd spent so much time around him?? Or maybe she was just attached???

She didn't fucking know. Either way, she found him almost instantly. You'd think she would know where he worked by now. She usually just messed with somebody else while she waited for him to come back, but she seemed to take a very strong liking to the young Egbert lately, almost like fucking with him was some kind of drug. She loved it, but at the same time, hated him. She wasn't sure why. He was kind of just a dumb shit that got on her every non-living nerve.

After talking to him for the first time, she didn't exactly know what to make of him. It could also be part jealousy for living the life she was refrained from. But she didn't want to blame it on that. That's just low. If that were truly the case, then why did she not feel the same resentment for each and every other living being she laid unseeing eyes on?

She eventually found John, not twenty minutes after his shift started, and simply followed him going about his work. For some reason, this seemed to satisfy her. Until of course, she saw a perfect opportunity for more screwing around.

She smirked and picked up an air horn from the pile behind him down aisle three, seemingly floating due to her invisible hand holding it up, then when all was silent, let the sound loose.

Having gotten into “the zone,” John had completely forgotten about his spooky houseguest. When the blistering, deafening sound of an air horn going off directly behind him struck his eardrums, his first immediate thought was not of the plucky poltergeist. After a high-pitched shriek and dropping the Jack-In-The-Box he had been holding directly onto his little toe. “AAHAH FUCK!” He squealed, attempting to rub his toe through his shoe, though poor as possible through three layers of leather. 

After quickly turning around to see if the perp had vanished- they had- he grasped the shelf to stable himself, glancing through to the other side to see a little boy, standing innocently with wide eyes and jaw tightened, staring him in the face. John immediately turned cherry red, “… Oh! Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry! Hey, you didn’t happen to see who did that by any chance, did you?” The little boy retained his blank face, and silently, slowly shook his head, before grabbing a box of party poppers and making a beeline for the front cashier. John groaned and rubbed his temples, “Ahh… Fuck…” he muttered to himself, much more quietly than he had yelled it just moments before in a tiny child’s face. He picked up the Jack-In-The-Box, as well as the air horn on the ground behind him, and placed them both back in their proper areas. “Must’ve fallen… Or something…” he murmured as he thought about all the ways he could possibly be fired.

The day was filled with ample time for Teresa to have even more alone time to think. About John, about herself, about others, and about the life she didn’t have. Eventually her thoughts drifted to trying to decipher her feelings for John. It was weird, she hated him, but at the same time, there was this nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach that suggested she might… Not.

She couldn't seem to stop smiling for most of the day, and her heart seemed to swell a little each time she drew a reaction from him. Wow, she really was addicted. She couldn't explain the feeling, and just settled to call it spades instead. She eyed a deck of packed cards misplaced on the shelf. Spades was the opposite of a heart, so it was kind of like... A love-hate kind of thing? Hmm. Spades sounds kind of boring. But then again so does hate. Hell, she could barely even see. It was more like she could sense outlines of things, but anything else was just blurred and dark. 

She wandered around the store for a bit, looking for inspiration for a name to call it, if only in her own mind. Whatever she would call it, at least she would have a name for the feelings he gave her. She liked to label things. It made everything so much simpler. Eventually she settled on ‘kismesis’ which was a combination of ‘kiss’ and ‘geneticist’. How she managed to find those words in a joke store she had no idea, but at least there was a name for it now. She'd spent all of ten minutes coming up with a name for it, and now she was inspired to come up with a whole thing for each card. It passed the boring hours of the day quite quickly as she wandered around, thinking of relationship statuses for each of the card symbols. You know that feeling you get when you realize you're in love with your friend, but you would never make a move on them? Like best-friend-love? Yeah, that's called Moirailegence (diamonds). A rivalry with an interjection? Auspistice (clubs). As for hearts, she had decided to give that a new name, too. Matesprits. She had labelled practically everything about it, naming the quadrants ‘flushed’, ‘caliginous’, ‘Ashen’ and ‘pale’ to describe Matesprits, Kismesis, Auspistice and Moirailegence respectively. She felt proud of herself for the second time that day. Okay, maybe more than just second, but that was irrelevant.

The lights in the store shut off and she realized they must be closing for the day. Woah shit, it was already dark outside. She hadn't even bothered to spring any more jokes on the young Egbert, but now was the perfect opportunity. Just as he locked the front door (he usually exited from the back door), another air horn went off, making him very nearly jump out of his skin. She giggled to herself, the can floating (or appearing to be floating) in her hand as she escorted herself through the air down aisle three, quite out of sight of the boy she'd frightened. She dropped the can again when he appeared at the end of the aisle, biting back a loud laugh so she could actually hear what he was saying and dropping a plastic spider by him to distract herself from getting side tracked. 

“EEK!” he shrieked at the second uncalled for air horn today. He spun around quick as a mouse, trying to see if he could catch the culprit. Then, he realized. He was alone in this store. The other employee had left already, and all the customers had stopped drifting in over an hour ago. He slowly, silently tiptoed around, trying to see if he could spot anyone hiding behind the shelves or something. All he saw was the lone air horn laying on the ground once more. He sighed, and went to pick it up again, replacing it further back on its shelf so it wouldn’t fall again. “Wait a minute,” he thought, and also said out loud though he may or may not have realized it. “I heard that thing from –right behind me-! There’s no WAY it could have fallen from all the way over- how could-?!” He stopped, the pranks and jests that had been tormenting him for weeks in his home all coming back to him. He stood up straight, and asked “Teresa?” She froze. After a few moments of futile waiting, John sighed and thought aloud to himself, “Maybe she can’t even leave the apartment? God I am stupid.” He turned on his heel, ready to go home already. He didn’t scream this time, but made a loud, frightened gasp and clutched his chest as he spit out “Oh shit-!” He nudged the spider with his foot, to see if it would try to kill him. It didn’t. It just stayed there like a dumb piece of plastic. He picked it up to find that it indeed was just a piece of plastic. God damn it. 

He threw it behind him, not even thinking to put it in its proper place… Then he turned around and picked it up off the floor again, and put it in the little box where such trinkets were sold for one dollar. He was determined to go straight back to his house again, but the recent delve of his brain into the ghost reminded him of his after-work plans. He grinned, as he grabbed his few things, and exited out the back.

She walked home leisurely, knowing she could just fly and pick up the pace if she saw him drive past. She was going to get there first, sitting in the corner again. She would make it out as if she just wanted to talk again, which was a rather legitimate excuse. Who else did she have to talk to? She sighed, shoving her hands in the pockets of her jeans and continued walking, wondering about a few random things. How was everybody else's eyesight compared to her own? Did they all see in outlines and blurry blotches as she did, or did they see something different? Whenever she touched things, they were always so much more vivid than what she saw, leading her to believe that she couldn't see all of it. And what about hearing and touch and taste and everything else, while she was at it? She had no indication any of that was different for her, but it was worth wondering about. Why it had taken so long for her to come up with questions like these, she didn't know. Teresa sighed again, shuffling her feet as she hunched over her own figure. "I hate this..." 

John made it home about thirty minutes past his usual time. He entered just as he always normally had, but this time, a certain plastic bag was seen in his left hand. He tried to make it discreet as possible, so that the ghastly woman would hopefully not notice. "Gee whiz I really gotta PEE!" He shouted loudly, hoping that when he stole away to the bathroom she would not follow him for fear of seeing too much. Great tactic, dork. Alert the blind girl who relied on other senses to survive (though she was a ghost and this analogy is irrelevant) exactly what you’re going to be doing and where. He busted out the fancy Indian incense and candles he’d accumulated upon the internet’s recommendation. He got out the scents to repel spirits, things like rose petals, garlic, violet, and cherry. He also got some "holy water," which he was supposed to spritz around his home, apparently. He had gotten it from the inside of an exquisite cathedral beside the oil shop, hopefully that wasn't illegal or anything. He poured the sacred dihydrogen monoxide into a spray bottle, lit a legitimate fuck ton of incense sticks, and, for good measure, made himself a full suit of armour out of bubble wrap and duct tape from only god knows where before kicking the bathroom door open and jumping out, ninja style, spray bottle in one hand and bundle of flaming sticks of the other.

Her light faded out as she moved from said corner into the living room, where he stood in his makeshift armour and holding the burning sticks. She didn't like the smell, but that was as far as it went. No magical repelling bullshit took place, although she did wrinkle her nose and laugh at the sight of him. Something about the incense must've triggered something however, as her voice suddenly turned to a much smoother tone rather than the gravelly sound she made all the time. It shocked her into silence immediately, and that was when she began to appear again, her form faint and very transparently glowing as she stood in front of him, looking a little more confused that he was used to seeing her. Well, whatever he'd managed to salvage from their first impressions, anyway. She had one hand held over her mouth, but apart from that, no effect.

John’s jaw dropped and he did a double take. He gasped, and held out his artillery with a strong arm. “Hey!” he shouted, his gaping maw turning into a smile. “I can see you! Haha!”

She just glared, taking her hand away from her mouth, and snarled, trying to fake her usual voice so he didn't get the satisfaction of knowing he had bested the great and powerful Terezi Pyrope- Terezi Pyrope? Who the fuck was that? Actually… It had a nice ring to it. It felt right. "Congratu-fucking-lations, you can see me. Are you satisfied, John?" She emphasized his name a little with the gravelly tone. It sounded a little different to him than what he heard the first time, but he said nothing. The ghost girl’s tone of voice was not his primary concern in this situation. His face widened into a gigantic smile.

"Yes, I am so satisfied," he replied. He paced closer to her, and began to circle her like a hungry Dingo in range of an abandoned child. "So... Tell me about yourself..." He said, trying to sound more menacing and devious than some sort of cheesy pick up line. "I know one thing- your names Teresa! But what do you want, anyway...I read that ghosts always have a motive!"

"My name's not Teresa," she huffed, still looking straight ahead. "It's Terezi, and even if there was something I wanted, why would I bother you of all people for it?" Who else could she talk to, though? She honestly couldn't think of a motive for her being here. The only reason that she ever came here was because she felt like it was... Her home, like John was an imposter and living her life. Suddenly a ‘motive’ sprung to mind. "Actually, who lived here before you did?" she wondered aloud, turning to face him again.

"Well, a lot of people have lived here..." He trailed off, going through a mental list. "I don't remember exactly who, but a lot of people came and then left after a few days- no doubt due to you- Terezi." He added emphasis to his correct pronunciation of her name in his snobbiest possible voice. "Some single mom and her kid, an old lady,” Terezi had to fight to not interject her demand that he just move along to whether there had been a half blind early twenties woman with ginger shoulder length hair that had lived here not less than a few months ago. She had to bite her lip nearly enough to draw blood to accomplish this. “An old man and three young ladies... One dude who had like fifteen pet rats..." He tried to remember just who had it first- or, well, at least who had it before people started leaving. Come to think of it, how much prior research was deemed not creepy before the landlord started questioning the new inhabitant’s motives? "I...don't quite remember past that. A woman, I think? I'll have to ask the landlord, yeah, in fact there should be a record of everyone who's lived here just downstairs..." He glanced at Terezi, and then at the door, his offensive mood and tone shifting to a much more amiable one. "Do you want to...? I mean, do you want me to...?" He looked pointedly towards the door again.

"Yes," she answered without a second thought. Suddenly the need to know if this was once her home became a burning desire, and even disregarding his stupid protective outfit of bubble wrap and duct tape, started towards the door herself and floated through it. She didn't usually do that, it made her feel “different” and icky, but she was kind of more focused on possibly learning about who she was. She didn't remember much. Hell, even her own name was just a mispronounced version of one that actually existed. John watched as she floated through his wall, and smiled somewhat sadly as he resolved to follow her, paying absolutely no mind to the fact that he was currently covered from head to toe in bubble wrap.

He was conflicted between the burning desire to eradicate the deceased girl from his home and wanting to help her, then following her downstairs, decided she was just a troubled soul who needed a little help from a friend. He sighed, letting his shoulders drop and his protective stance weaken.

He opened the door and walked through like a civilized human being and followed Terezi's floating image as she would become more and less visible depending on how close she was to him and his incense-y smells. She seemed a little too familiar with the layout...? Maybe she had lived here? Maybe she had been familiarizing herself with the layout of this house for X amount of time while she taunted him? He followed her down the familiar (to him) steps to the landlords’ office. It was late at night, no doubt past eight, which had been his bedtime back at home. Embarrassing for an eighteen year old to have a bedtime, let alone such an early one. Off topic, he decided. 

The crotchety old fucker was no doubt asleep by now. Terezi was able to float in effortlessly, but the door was locked, keeping the tangible securely out. John frowned at the locked door, and was surprised when, after a few silent moments, it crept open on its own. He wasn't sure how much influence this Terezi lass had on the physical world, but he supposed opening locked doors was among her indecipherable powers. He was rather flattered that she let him in to share in her journey of self-discovery. He entered, closing the door behind him, and saw Terezi standing above an already opened file, studying its contents, feet planted firmly on the ground as if her skinny-looking frame actually carried some gravitational pull.

The light overhead flickered on for John's benefit, though she could hardly register the difference, nor could she read the words inscribed in front of her. This confirmed it. There was no way everybody else could see the same way she did. So she did the next best thing. She brought the paper to her face and licked it. Her mind seemed to register what was on the paper with this action, but it left John confused as shit when he saw it happen. She smiled to herself. She had lived here. And hers was the only record with no cancellation by the inhabitant. That could only mean one thing. She had died while living in this house. Maybe not in the house, but it was under her name when she died, and went back to the landlord after. She just stared at the paper in awe for a moment, trying to fathom where to start for the rest of the investigation.

Confused as hell at her licking of the paper, John stepped forward to see what had so captivated her. He glanced at the paper in her pale, softly glowing hands, and was a little saddened, to be honest, at what he saw. ‘Terezi Pyrope’ huh. That's... A really weird name, he thought, but hey, it could be weirder. He looked at her, observing the contentedness and bittersweet state of it. "I'm sorry," he said, and raised a hand to place on her shoulder, before realizing it probably wouldn't do anything.

His hand went straight through her shoulder and she put down the paper again, not saying anything as she went back upstairs, this time floating, and went through the open doorway without another word. She wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Even if she had lived here at one point, that didn't explain why she wasn't in the afterlife or something. Heaven, Hell, limbo, underworld, whatever the fuck, just not here, where she was quite literally the only one of her kind. Did she leave something unfinished? Somehow, that thought eventually translated into the fact that John must know something she didn't, and made her a little resentful. John couldn't find her for the rest of the night, as a quick scan of the house implied. Where she would usually sit in the corner of his room, she refused to be anywhere near it that night. She sat in the corner of the living room instead, knees drawn to her chest. Sigh. Sigh X 2 combo. 

This corner just didn’t offer the same comfort. If anything, it sent chills down her spine, and eventually made her uncomfortable enough to stand and sit at the table. All alone. Calm. Peaceful. She tilted her head back in the chair, smiling. All she could think is; “What a great setting for a horror movie.”

When everybody knew it would just be a sad rip off of the nineteen-something “Nightmare on Elm Street.” Even she could agree that one was a graciously shitty attempt at scaring kids on Halloween.


	3. A new complication

John made his way to his home and room, and stripped off his bubble wrap suit. He put out all his incense and that “holy water” didn’t end up making a splash in his house. He didn't see Terezi again that night, and after staying up about half an hour waiting to see if she would show, eventually fell asleep.

Morning came and Terezi peeled her face from the table with a wince, her face was stuck to the wood like a tattoo to virgin flesh and was intent on never yielding. After finally freeing herself, she promptly returned to the exact same position, but facing the other way. She just, didn’t feel like doing anything today. She hadn’t even bothered to set any traps for John to walk into.

John woke up the next day at noon. Woah, what the fuck? He looked at the clock, and remembered. Oh yeah. It's Saturday. He didn't have to work on Saturdays, but normally he woke up early anyway to the smell of something burning or the sound of something breaking due to nothing in particular. He glanced at the empty corner. 

Sleeping in was a rare luxury that he didn't often get. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and threw the covers off, revealing his unprotected body to the cold, cruel air. He got up and made his way out of his room slowly, looking out for any tell-tale signs of Terezi. 

She stirred from her trance-like state when John emerged from his room, but did nothing, content in sulking on her own for a while. She just had so many questions that she didn't know how to put into words.

After his morning bathroom trip- a very important part of any reasonable human’s morning routine- he made his way to the kitchen for step two of surviving the day; Breakfast. He looked around, trying to spot Terezi. No such luck. The magical sticks of sinus torture that had allowed him to see her last night were no longer active. He supposed he could light some sticks again today, to maybe talk with her some more and see what’s up. 

She had seemed kind of wistful the previous night. And although she was tricky and liked to laugh at his pain, John still found himself rather enjoying her company in the end. She was kind of like, that next door neighbour that you’ve grown up with and subsequently they know all your little kinks and secrets and won’t hesitate to exploit said kinks and secrets to the first and five thousandth person that asked. You love them, but at the same time really wish they would stop breathing. Did she even breathe? He didn’t know.

Terezi sighed and got up from the table, walked over to the corner on the other side of the room from where she’d had a near panic attack and slid to the floor, rather enjoying the feeling of being sorry for herself rather than focusing on someone else's misfortune. Up until now, she had kind of just buried any thoughts she had about herself and her past life under layers and layers of people she liked to torment. Apart from that... John probably knew her better than she knew herself, and they'd barely talked twice. 

She had a feeling this was going to be a long day, especially if she decided to keep it all to herself. John sat down at the table behind her while she turned and faced the wall, lifting the bowl with her weird “ghostly powers” to threaten tipping it over his head again, but she lost motivation halfway through and it sunk back to the table. She wondered if he had any more of those sinus offenders that made her visible.

He smiled at the floating cereal bowl, a sign that Terezi was still with him. He winced and braced for impact when it floated above him, and was surprised when it settled back down in front of him without a splash. He couldn't tell if that meant she was warming up to him, or she was just not feeling like herself. He hoped it was the former. Imagine how fantastic it would be to be friends with a freaking ghost! His thoughts fell silent, and he decided to reach out to her. "... Hello?" He asked.

Even if she had answered, there was no way he'd be able to hear her. She was invisible, remember? That thought settled in for the first time. She hadn't allowed herself to think about it much, but now that she was more self-aware... It kind of hurt. That John was the only one who could see her (and that was only under specific circumstances), and that he really was leading her life. She wasn't even sure if this was a platonic hate, or the spades one. What did she call it again? Oh yeah, kismesis. Was this a kismesis thing? She was sure of one thing - she loathed John. With that thought in mind, she ended up tipping the contents of his breakfast all over him anyway. 

“Hey- Ohhh you bitch!” he yelled. He had to admit, that was a good one. Make them think they’re off the hook… Then go in for the kill. And that was that. She stood up, deciding feeling sorry for herself wasn't as great as she thought, and drifted back to the corner of his bedroom, the only place in the house she could ever be seen. John stormed off to grab a washcloth and sop up the mess, grumbling extremely rude things under his breath all the while. How was this dead girl able to make him feel so connected and happy, and then disgusted and hateful and angry all at the same time? He wanted to know. God, and he thought dealing with the emotions that got all tangled up during puberty was bad… Now he was an adult (okay so eighteen is maaaaybe still considered a teenager, but that’s not the point!) and his feelings and emotions were once again turning and twisting inside of him. After cleaning up the mess, he skulked back into his room, where he saw the offending spirit standing in the “visibility corner” as he liked to call it. He pointed a sharp look pure annoyance at her.

She looked sort of sullen, just standing there and looking at the ground. All she could see were outlines anyway. She'd heard of this amazing thing called colour, but alas, could not see it. She'd had to resort to smell and touch to sense such things, and it appeared to her that John still wasn't aware of that. For some reason, this difference made her feel calm, like she still had a connection with her past life. She’d expected a difference like that would make her feel isolated, as every other one had so far. But it made her wonder why she was still here. John said spirits always have a motive, right? So what's hers? Did she meant to simply haunt John, or was there something else? She sighed softly, biting her lip gently. She didn't know what to do. Labels were useless in a situation such as this. Well, maybe not useless, but certainly not helpful.

John, having no insight to the girl’s inner turmoil, crossed his arms and pursed his lips. Without saying a word- mostly, because he had no idea what to say- he went over to his bed and sat down on it, facing away from her. He looked her way sharply, then away, then back at her again. He stayed silent. What do you even say to someone who makes you feel such a complicated mix of feelings? "I hate you but I really like you?" "You seem really cool but you annoy the fuck out of me?" Aauuugh god! He seemed to forget the object of his turmoil was beside him, as he wrestled with his own feelings about her inside his own head and making some interesting facial expressions while doing so.

Terezi didn't really notice, too caught up in her own thoughts. At least with all the stupid names she'd come up with that day, she was able to label some of the more fucked up things in life, but she knew this was more than just a label. She sighed and lifted her head to look over at John, who she could only see a very vague outline of anyway, and spoke. "So what now?" She asked, hoping to get a conversation going. Even if John didn't know, he'd probably still reply, thus starting a conversation. The quiet was killing her. This gave a whole new meaning to “silent but deadly” in her mind. She let herself laugh internally at the thought.

He snapped out of his thoughtful trance and looked her way once more. He sighed. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?” He edged over closer to her, leaned forward, and performed a rare and highly dangerous 2x shit-eating grin and eyebrow waggle combo. “And yet I still find myself willing to help you.”

She didn't even bother turning her head to pretend that she could see him, and just stayed still. The only reason she could tell he was there was because of how close his voice sounded. "You said ghosts all have their own motive, right? So how can I tell what mine is?" It discouraged her that she was so blind to herself, but at the same time, made her all the more determined to figure it out.

He was a bit taken aback by her sudden willingness to accept his help. It was a nice feeling, however. Nice to be trusted. "I...I don't know," he admitted, defeated. But then he perked up. "But I can probably find out!" He swiftly moved to grab his cell phone off of the nightstand, and opened it up, perusing his list of contacts. "I already scoured the internet searching for things on ghosts, but I think I know someone who could possibly tell us more." He turned back to Terezi. "She's a writer. She's real good! Fantasy stuff. Wizards and things, she's gonna win an award one day, I just know it. But when we were in high school she always liked talking about spirits and eldritch-type stuff so if anyone I know knows, it's her!" His enthusiasm was sickening. He turned to Terezi once more, taking a break from his racing mind. "I mean...you know, if you'd want that."

She hesitated a moment - still recovering from the whole ‘I don’t give a fuck about your friend that gets off on watching Gandalf’s beard grow’ rant in her mind - but nodded.

"Sure," She sounded like she'd made up her mind. There was no way she was going to back down now. The first glimmer of finding out who she was, or at least why she's not living it up in the afterlife, and he thought she wasn't going to take it? Ha ha ha! She still didn't look at him, but to John, it didn't feel any different. He never once felt like he was being watched, even with the ghost around. Of course he got easily irritated by the taunting, but he never got the feeling that she was... I dunno, looking straight through him or something. Terezi barely moved from her spot, just shuffled her position a little.

John opened up his phone contacts once more, this time clicking on a name. 

"Hello?" came the smooth, feminine voice on the other end of the line. 

"Rose!" John exclaimed. "I need your help. Ghost help. Can you do ghosts?" 

"Can I...do...ghosts?" she responded, and then laughed. "I suppose that would be difficult considering their intangible form, but if it's help with a haunting you're after, I can do that." 

"Great!" John exclaimed excitedly. "I'll just need you to come over and take a looksie. She's a real feisty one~" Terezi growled at that comment. "When's the soonest you can make it?" 

Rose’s line was silent for a few seconds. "Tomorrow," she said. "Come around at about two.” John sulked. 

"Oh damn, okay, okay that's fine. I'll see you tomorrow!" 

"Goodbye, John." He could sense her rolling her eyes over the line, and the sassy smirk that bore into his earlobe. Though that was entirely impossible, since it’s through the phone where he can’t see crap. 

John looked at Terezi's translucent form and cracked a small smile. He reached out to place a reassuring hand on her, but then stopped himself when he realized it would do no good. 

"We'll get you help," he said with a gigantic grin. "It'll have to wait till tomorrow though. But it'll come!" He flopped down back onto his bed, much pleased with the progress they’d made.

She kind of just stood there, feeling a little relieved that she would finally be fixed, but also a little pissed that she would have to wait. Despite having an eternity, she was a very impatient person. Terezi huffed, and, without another word, fell back through the wall into the next room and walked out of the house, curious to see if she could find this "Rose" on her own. 

John was a little surprised by her huff and subsequent leaving. Wasn't she glad she'd be getting help? Huh. Whatever. Her choice, he resolved. It wasn’t like he owned her.

The name he’d mentioned sounded kind of familiar to her. Like a friend-of-a-friend familiar. In any case, she was going to mess with someone else tonight. A thought crossed her mind as she did so. What if "helping her" meant returning her mortality? What then? She frowned at the thought, the idea not appealing to her at all. It was so confusing. She wanted so desperately to know why she was still here and why she was forced to practically watch someone live her life, and yet the thought of having it all deterred her so much. She pushed all these thoughts to the back of her mind as she heard a familiar voice. Was that the Rose girl? Yes. Most definitely. She'd found the right place. One point to Terezi motherfucking Pyrope. She felt a shiver go down her spine.

John decided to go about his Saturday taking plenty of "me time" for himself. Yep. A day of total relaxation and focusing on John things....

John could not get his mind off of Terezi.

She haunted him- literally, yes- but the idea of her haunted his mind as well. She intrigued him. She made him angry as hell but he actually liked spending time with her? Guahhh! Dumb confusing conflicting emotions! 

He let out a strangled groan, rubbing his eyes under the thickly rimmed glasses that adjourned his face every day, then relaxed and slumped into a chair at the kitchen table, groaning once more as he opened his laptop and tried to get his mind off of her with some mindless internet...He immediately- without even thinking about it- started doing more research on ghosts. 

She’d seemed so distraught before she left. She didn't seem to remember who she really was. She hadn't even remembered her own name at first. He remembered it now, from the file in the office, and he tried to find more about her using that. One of the first things that came up when he searched "Terezi Pyrope Washington Plaza" was an article, accompanied by an obituary dated only a few months back. Duh! He slapped his own forehead for not thinking to look her up before. He stared at the link, and hesitated before clicking it. It did seem kind of personal... 

He got up, lit up some more incense so that when she returned he'd see her, and settled back down in front of the computer. He took a moment, a deep breath- why was he nervous about this?- and clicked the article.

Meanwhile, Terezi passed most of the following hours taunting Rose, misplacing items, moving things for no reason. But no matter what she tried, it just wasn't the same. After about three or four hours of continuous haunting, she started to make her way back home. 

Hmm. When did she start calling that place her home? That set off another argument between her and her emotions as she made her way back, surprised to see an outline of her arm when she looked at it. Her nose filled with a semi-familiar scent, and she realized he must've been burning the smelly stick things again. She prepared herself for the worst when she went back to the kitchen, bracing for impact, or water, or cream pie to the face – or whatever the wannabe trickster had planned.

She may have been preparing for the worst, but what she came back to was... A sleeping boy, head tilted back on the chair, mouth hanging open and figure slumped with a little bit of drool coming out too. John was passed out at the table, snoring like a pig. Good fucking job, Egbert. He awoke with a jolt at the sound of his door opening- why did she even bother opening it? 

"Aw- oh no! Oh noooooooooo..." He seemed disappointed. "Aw no! Damn it. I was gonna jump out and surprise you but I fell asleep waiting! Awwwww damn!" He sat up and shrugged. He took out his trusty water spritzer, now filled with just regular water, and sprayed it straight at her eyes. He took delight in the fact that she flinched anyway, despite the fact that it wouldn't touch her. He flopped back down with a loud yawn, and giggled at his own successful trick. "So where were you anyway?"

"None of your business," And suddenly she was cold as ice again, crossing her arms and jutting one side of her hip out in a very stereotypical "sassy girl" pose, before realizing how stupid it was and returned to her normal stance. "I was out for a while. That's all you need to know."

"Gee, okay, be that way," he responded, sounding much akin to a sassy teenage girl with an attitude problem. He smiled to himself at her obvious discontent. He sat up, and stared her straight in the eyes. "I guess you don't care about what I’ve been doing all day, either, huh?" She huffed, and responded with and annoyed snort.

"Yeah, no. Like I could care less about what some egotistical idiot did with his boring day." John hummed through his smile, and cocked his head to the side. 

"Yeah, that's what I thought. I knew you wouldn't care about my research, or the things I found out about you on the glorious World Wide Web..."

"Wait, what?" That suddenly piqued her interest, and she perked instantly. She even cared enough to take a few steps forward and get all up in his personal space, even though they both knew she couldn't actually touch him. It was still uncomfortable, especially when she kept just enough difference that it looked like she could. Terezi just stared him down until he spoke again. He grinned at her sudden eagerness, and then hopped up off the chair. 

“Follow me," he said, offering his hand, momentarily forgetting she couldn't take it. When she stared at him for that like he was an idiot, his face flushed quickly with embarrassment, and then walked to where his laptop sat on the other side of the table. He opened it up to the page it was previously on, and gestured for Terezi to look as he read out loud "Local Woman Terezi Pyrope Dead in what Police Call 'Freak Accident'- Sparks Controversy."

Terezi was speechless. She just stood there, hands on her knees and peering over his shoulder, even though all she had to go off was his voice and what he was saying. Freak accident? Is that really how she died? She couldn't help but feel just a tiny bit disappointed. She thought she'd have done something horrible and died in the process, and that was why she was stuck as a ghost, but never mind. 

“You look disappointed," he said, as if reading her mind. Really, he was only reading her face. 

“Yeah..." she replied. “A freak accident? I could've sworn I went out in a more badass way than that." John laughed at her comment, but knew that something about all this didn't sit right with her.

There goes one of her only clues, down the drain. Glugging like a fucking alcoholic on a Friday night. She said nothing as he continued talking about how she died, all the circumstances involved... 

Well, what was recorded of it, anyway. 

"It doesn't give out the details of the accident," he said. "But it does say that police have determined that it was, indeed, an accident and no foul play was involved whatsoever..." He furrowed his brow. "That's a little strange. It's like they're trying to convince everyone that it was an accident at all." He read over the article again. He pursed his lips, and thought for a moment. "Miss Pyrope, would you like to dig further into the investigation of this pressing matter?" He asked in his best detective voice, sensing that she wanted to learn more, and that something about this article and determined cause of death didn't seem right. Terezi resolved to at least finish reading the article before making any drastic decisions.

Upon a much needed extended reading, it was discovered that Terezi had a girlfriend by the name of Vriska Serket, who had been there when the accident occurred. See what I’m telling you John, crucial information. Terezi decided she mustn’t’ve been too fond of this Serket girl if she couldn't remember her, and ignored the small pang of longing that appeared when she saw the girl's picture. Or... Tasted it. Yeah, she licked the screen again. John pointed to the picture. She gave him a look. And then leaned forward and licked the screen, ignoring every complaint that escaped his lips.

After getting over his initial shock, and then action-induced anger and annoyance, he took a moment to gather his thoughts and decided maybe she'd want to see what her girlfriend had to say about it. They were going to see Rose tomorrow, but they could still find time to make a trip to... Miss Vriska Serket's house, it seemed, and see what she had to say on the matter.

He repeated his question when she didn’t answer on her own accord. "Miss Pyrope, would you like to dig further into this investigation?"

"Yes," she answered without missing a beat. In another life, she would've played along and joined in on the silliness, but she was dead serious now. "So you can go back to sleep, I'll go find this Vriska and see what she's doing," She had a picture in her head now of what the Serket looked like (as vaguely as humanly or ghostly possible), and she was going to find her. Even if she remembered nothing and felt nothing for the girl, she was going to find and confront her to get as much info out of her as possible. Can you not even wait until after seeing Rose? If I didn’t know any better, Pyrope, I’d say you had a crush. But no, that’s probably just post-death emotions bubbling their way to the surface again.

"Woah, woah, woah. You wanna go handle this by yourself?" he asked. "Don't forget, normal people can't see you.” Then what are you, John? He seemed to catch himself quickly after saying it. “Only under certain circumstances." He took a second, collecting his thoughts and transferring them to words as best he could in the small time frame this girl allowed for halfway decent conversation. "Why not let me go with you? I can bring the smelly stuff and then Vriska can see you. Plus, if we're gonna be living together- well if you're going to exist in an undead state in my house, anyway- I want to know what's going on. Plus - plus! I love ghost stuff and I'm an asshole so say goodbye to any dream of being some sort of vigilante lone ranger, missy." He gave her a look of pure asshole-y-ness, a wicked smile filled with pure vitriol.

She glared, annoyed that he was right. "Well if for some reason I'm attached to you,” Careful Terezi, that’s basically the equivalent of admitting your little hate crush “and you can see me, then it would stand to reason that my fucking girlfriend would be able to, right?" She had a point. But it was still a risk. She didn't even know where the girl lived. Sigh. Her light seemed to dim a little bit with the disappointment.

"You and I didn't even know each other before you died... I think..." He wandered over to a cabinet on the floor and opened it. "So obviously my ability to see you has nothing to do with past relationship." He shrugged, and pulled out a dusty old Yellow Pages. "This is a little old but so long as she's lived in the area for a while she should be in here..." He noticed Terezi's faint image growing fainter and fainter by the second. 

Then, he had an idea. Before continuing his search through the phone book, he dug up some of the black dust left over from the burnt sticks, and put it in the little crevices in his glasses between the lens and the arms. 

"What the hell are you doing now?" She asked. 

"Shhhhh..." He shushed her. "This might just be crazy enough to work." And it was. She was still visible, albeit slightly, without his glasses, but when he put them on she became ten times clearer and more vibrant. And not just because he was blind without them anyway. Mission accomplished! 

Next he turned his attention to his previous mission. He flipped through the phone book, muttering to himself- "Serket, Serket, Serket..." He found her almost immediately. There were three people by the surname Serket, but the one he was looking for, Vriska, was the last listed. He placed his finger pointedly on the name, and looked to the now crystal clear Terezi. "So? How about it? Want me to call her up and schedule something?"

She was silent for a moment, a little worried. She wanted to do it herself. It was her girlfriend after all. But knowing mortals, Vriska would probably drop the phone and then proceed to freak the absolute fuck out that she was indeed alive. She bit her lip for a second, then nodded. Better he do it and make himself sound like a mad man than she do it and make the other girl feel as such. With the enhanced view of her, he could see that she even had faint colours to her - not just glowing teal. Her hair was red, her skin pale and her clothes dark. Upon closer inspection, her eyes were blank and milky behind red tinted glasses. And yet she still glanced around as if she could see. The phone floated from its handset into the kitchen via Terezi's weird ghost powers and paused, floating in front of him before he could even get up to grab the phone.

He smiled, and carefully copied the numbers from the page onto the landline receiver. He held the phone to his ear, suddenly nervous. What would he even say to this girl? "Hey, remember your girlfriend who died a couple months ago? Well her ghost is haunting me and she wants to talk to you."? Jesus. He was practically sweating a gallon when the voice on the other end of the line picked up. 

"STOP FUCKING CALLING ME!!!!!!!!" Okay, that was not the greeting he was expecting. The sharp, angry female voice continued to rant. "No, I don't want your fucking vacuum. I've already told you god damn people this sixteen thousand fucking times!!!!!!!! Just leave me alone! If you call me again, I swear on the Virgin Mary's sweet unused tampons, I will personally find out where exactly you live, and I will slit your wife's throat and skin her while she bleeds out, then I will string her up by her toes and hang her corpse from the ceiling fan and force your children to wear her intestines as a jacket while Mommy spins round the room to the Buffy the vampire slayer theme song! So stop fucking calling me you god damn jackasses!!!!!!!!" John sat still, mouth agape, unsure if he should call the cops or the secret service. 

Terezi, having heard the tantrum from where she stood, let out an earth-shattering cackle as she muttered to herself "That's my girl." John gulped, and finally found the strength to meekly speak up. 

"Um...hi?" The rage-filled voice on the other end flattened. 

"Oh. It's someone different. Well thank god for that! Who are you and what do you want." It was more of a demand than a question. 

"Uh, yes, is this Vriska Serket?" The boy's shaky voice came. 

"In the fucking flesh," she responded. He cleared his throat, determined to not make a fool of himself. 

"Well, hello, my name is John Egbert-” 

"Aaaaaaaand should I know that name?" 

"No, uh, no I just live at Washington Apartments, Number 1025?" She fell silent. No more sound was coming from the once colourful and erratic Miss Serket. After a few elongated moments, John spoke up again, after clearing his throat once more. "Well, yeah, and I-" 

"What do you want." 

"I was just about to say that-" 

"What. Do. You. Want." 

He paused a moment. "I have someone here who would like to speak with you." She laughed harshly. 

"Look buddy I already dealt with the police and private investigators, put up with the newspaper and media shit, and the funeral home employees and I don't need anything else from-" 

"It's her." 

"It's who?" He could almost sense the girl raise an eyebrow.

"Ah..." He looked to Terezi, her face stone hard, frozen in a state of intense focus. Suddenly, the ghost spoke, tired of just sitting in the shadows of the conversation. 

"Vriska!" Silence. John spoke into the phone again.

"Did... Did you hear that?" 

"Get your ass over here right now. 888 Watergrove Lane. And bring the rest of you, while you’re at it, Eg-derp." She hung up. John slumped back in his chair and let go of a gigantic breath he didn't know he'd been holding for the entire duration of the phone call. 

He closed his eyes, rubbed his face, opened them and looked to Terezi. "Well. I'll go start the car." It was almost unbelievable how happy she looked in that moment.


	4. In which boring shit is explained and no one is entertained

John went to the car, and after suggesting that Terezi drive just to fuck with everybody who saw - then getting rejected with an Oscar-winning eye roll that not even the most sarcastic of teenagers could accomplish, climbed in and started it up as she floated straight through the garage door, waiting for him to come out too so she could follow him. According to John’s vision, she was nowhere to be seen. 

It was kind of late by now. Like a ghost town. Okay we need to stop with the ghost jokes. Some people don't find them funny.

Said Pyrope had simply flown higher, intending to follow the car since she had no idea where the blue blazing alternian bulge fondling fuck where 888 Watergrove Lane was. She followed the car lazily, clearly having the advantage speed wise, and lowered herself to the ground when the car stopped in front of what she assumed to be their destination. 

She couldn't place why, but she was suddenly really nervous. As in fiddling with her fingers behind her back nervous. Had her heart still be beating, she could only assume it'd be running a marathon without her. She appeared behind him, scaring the absolute fuck out of him when he turned around to call for her at the door, but recovered quickly after a heated scolding, followed by a snappy remark to make him shut up again. 

She simply stood there afterwards, anxiously waiting for the door to open. She wasn't sure what her reaction would be to meeting the girl in the flesh, but she could only imagine it would have some unnecessarily profound effect and fuck up whatever kind of blissful experience she was currently living. Whatever. She had no clue how this would go. 

In a way, that made her all the more excited to go ahead and open the door herself - what is taking Vriska so long to come down? Still nervous. Fuck, calm down it's just your girlfriend who might've possibly seen you die - wait... Fuck, what if that was the case? 

None of Terezi's inner conflict never made it past her lips. She just stayed quiet as she could, biting her lip nervously. She’d be lying if she said that wasn’t the longest thirty seconds of her life.

John wondered silently if he was the only one who could see Terezi, or if their gracious host would be able to see her as well. After a few minutes, the door swung open and John was met face to face with the image of a disgruntled young woman. She was pretty, he'd give her that, but everything about her- the punk clothes she wore, the unkempt mass of hair upon her head, the stern frown that graced her face- screamed "I am a dangerous person." One thing that struck him as particularly odd was the fact that she seemed to be wearing sunglasses with the right lens removed, so that only her left eye was hidden. Upon closer inspection it became obvious that her right eye was in fact covered by a regular clear prescription lens. He wondered to himself just what the hell the purpose of that strange setup could be. 

She eyed him like a hawk, focusing on him and how he looked. She didn't seem to notice Terezi. He looked around himself and found that he, too, could not see Terezi. Where was she? Had his makeshift ghost-seeing goggles run out of juice or was she hiding? 

"Egbert?" Vriska asked, taking him out of his momentary mindless drift. He snapped back into himself in an instant. 

"Oh! Yes. Hello, Miss Serket-" she kicked her foot back to make the door swing open behind her. 

"Miss Serket, I like that, nice and formal," she mused to herself as she gestured for him to follow her inside. When he didn't follow, she sighed and rolled her eyes at his stupidity. 

"Come in why don't you. Unless you want to talk to me out here where there might be witnesses." Witnesses? He wasn't sure if she was joking or not. 

He looked around in search of Terezi once more, and, not finding any sign of her, resolved to follow Vriska into her home. Her dirty, dirty home, he found out as he entered. Jesus Christ, did this woman not own a dishwasher? Or a laundry machine? Or a vacuum? And why were there so many goddamn 8-balls all over the place? He watched his step carefully as he walked behind her, following her to what he assumed was a kitchen. She brushed some papers off of a chair and told him to “have a seat,” as she nodded to it. 

"Thank you," he replied meekly as he did as he was told. She turned to her refrigerator, and opened it up. She grabbed what seemed to be a soda or energy drink of some sort, and plopped herself down across from him. She popped the top off her drink and began to chug it, making John more uncomfortable than a lesbian in church. She finished her elongated sip, and looked him straight in the eye. 

"Alright so you're here to tell me about my girlfriend right." He perked up at her approach of the topic. 

"Yeah, yeah! I'm, uh, I'm here to tell you about Terezi." Vriska let out a gigantic guffaw, and had to slam her hand on the table a few times to express her excitement. 

"You're here to tell me about Terezi?" She paused, as she smiled a smile that could kill puppies. "What do you know about Terezi?" She sighed. "Did you...meet Terezi when you were a toddler? Did you spend the entirety of your childhood in her backyard? Did you go through preschool, elementary school, and high school side by side with her? Did you share your deepest secrets with her, John? Did you kiss her in the moonlight on a dark summer night because in that moment you felt like no one else mattered but the two of you?" 

"Miss, I'm just her roommate!" John exclaimed. Of course that wasn't exactly true, but he was put under a lot of pressure at the moment. He had to forgive her. She obviously cared about Terezi, and he wasn't going to blame her for being a little emotional, but still. He looked up to see her reaction to his outburst, and saw that she was frozen in a state of utter disbelief. Her one visible eye was widened in shock and her jaw dropped slightly, just hanging open. John was confused, until he turned around and saw that Terezi had walked into the circle of where she was visible to humans.

It was quite obvious that while she had gathered the courage to reveal herself, she was still nervous. Even though she'd gotten her answer as to what she'd meant to Vriska, there were still so many questions. Was she also there to see her die? All she knew about her past life was that she had been dating this girl, lived in John's house, and died in a disappointing freak accident. Anything else that may or may not have happened was a complete mystery. 

Terezi looked down at the ground - not like she can see any of them anyway - biting her lip softly. She wanted to speak. She had to speak. But she seemed to be at a loss for words. She needed to speak. She managed to open her mouth, but no sound escaped her lips. Her inner conflict was beginning to get to her, and everything that'd happened in her undead life was starting to pass before her unseeing eyes. 

This was the moment of truth where she would learn what she was a like and what happened before she died. She can't imagine she was too different than what she was now, but that was always open for debate. She shuffled one foot a little and pushed back some hair behind her ear, still struggling to just fucking say something already. 

Vriska unfortunately beat her to it. "...Terezi?" She sounded disbelieving, like she’d just been reunited with a cat of hers that she thought had been dead for months. With the close proximity of the ghost-seeing glasses John wore, she looked like she was alive. John knew this was not the case, but you could've fooled Serket. "I'm dead too, aren't I?" she concluded. Terezi fought to say something once again to ease her conscious, but couldn't. "I just hope I didn't go out in a freak accident like you," she crossed her arms, seemingly a little bitter. 

Terezi's mouth opened again and to her surprise, she managed to actually say something. "Vriska, you're not dead, I am!" She exclaimed, her gravelly voice cutting through the momentary silence. Vriska was silent for the longest time before sighing and pushing herself to her feet, fighting the sudden urge to cry as she walked closer and attempted to wrap her arms around her, momentarily terrified for the one second she went through her girlfriend in doing so before it sunk in. Terezi was a ghost.

"Listen, I don't know what's going on either but I think it would be best to tell you right now before anything goes any farther that I don't-" She cut herself off, having trouble continuing her sentence. 

"You don't what?" Vriska narrowed her eyes slightly, worried. After a long second of silence and several failed attempts to elaborate from Terezi, John spoke up to cover her. He didn't want to interrupt their reunion, but there was a more pressing matter in the way of that, anyway. 

"She doesn't remember you," He explained quickly, then regretting it when Vriska turned to him with a death stare. If looks could kill, Vriska would certainly be right up there with Zeus and Andrew Hussie. Terezi looked guilty when John said it for her, and said nothing else, just looking down at the floor, almost like she was embarrassed.

John gulped, suddenly fearful for his life. He hadn't meant to say it- it just came out. As much as Terezi annoyed him and made him angry about stupid little things he still felt some sort of- dare he say it- affection for her and he could tell that she really, really could not say it herself. If no one had it would only lead to more miscommunication- and that was not what they needed at the moment. 

"She...she..." He stuttered. Vriska was now staring at him with enough venom to take down a mammoth. "Terezi doesn't remember exactly what her life was like. Occasionally, a few bits and pieces will come back to her, but uh...for the most part, yeah, she doesn't remember anything. At first she didn't even remember her own name. We found out who you were from the news articles, and..." He trailed off as he sensed the air get ten times thicker.

Terezi looked up slowly, forcing herself to stop biting her lip. It was starting to draw blood. Wait, blood? Her heart had stopped, and yet she still bled? She licked the small trickle from her lip, surprised at the vivid taste. It wasn't tangy and metallic like she had expected or heard of - it was more sweet and... Was that blueberry? She forgot it for a little while and forced herself to look up and meet the girl's eyes, practically ejecting the words from her body. 

"Look, I want to remember you, okay? I can tell that I meant a lot to you and it's really fucking frustrating that I can't do it." She took a moment to gather her thoughts. "He's right. I didn't even remember my name for months. God knows how long I've even been this way... But that's kind of what we came here for. I want to remember and you obviously know more than the two of us combined, so... What can you tell me?" Terezi was surprised at her own confidence, and ran her tongue across her lip again to clear the blood straight after. 

"... I may as well start at the beginning, then." She sighed heavily after a long moment of silence and went back to the table, sitting down with both her arms and legs crossed, then gesturing for Terezi to take the empty seat before remembering about her girlfriend's condition and speaking. "There's an extra chair over here if you want to sit," She spoke much more kindly to Terezi than she did John, that was for sure.

Vriska settled herself into her chair, crossing her arms. She took a deep breath, and then began. 

“So. Yeah. Terezi and I met when we were quite young. Our Mums knew each other or some shit. I think my Mum got arrested and then hers was the lawyer who went against her in court or something? Something like that, my Mum got arrested too many times to count. Anyway point is we met when we were like three and we got along right away. You ever watch kids play? Pirates and fairies and make-believe stuff? That was us. We were best friends. People mistook us for sisters, since we spent so much time together, and for a while we just accepted it and started telling people we were sisters.” She laughed. 

“However that ‘sister’ title would become awkward given the circumstances later on, as you know. Anyway we ended up at the same preschool. Same kindergarten, same elementary school, middle school and high school. When you live in a dump place like this it’s easy to get zoned for the same place as the entire town. Sure, we had our fights and scuffles and sometimes things got violent but when it came down to it I was glad to have her by my side. We were the bane of every teacher’s existence, we would pull so many pranks and shit on everyone else we knew. We sometimes even got the best of each other but it was all in good fun. We grew up together, and one day, during 11th grade, we were both pretty freaking upset with our own respective love lives. Just confused and not sure how to feel because she had dated these two guys and then they started dating each other, which, to be quite honest, everyone could see coming.” 

She glanced at Terezi apologetically. “You remember them at all? Dave and Karkat? They’re still dating now, you know. Dave’s off to fancy college but they’re ‘making it work’ or whatever. You used to bully them mercilessly, it was the greatest thing. You were really close friends with the both of them. One time you drew this awful picture of them kissing with all these hearts and shit around it and got it into the school paper and everyone laughed.” 

John’s head snapped up, and he couldn’t help from interjecting. “Wait! Dave Strider? Karkat Vantas? Is that who you’re talking about?” Vriska’s own head snapped towards him in anger, and her words were practically a growl. 

“Yeah. Why?” John looked down, embarrassed that he had interrupted. 

“Oh, sorry, it’s just that I know them. Dave was my best friend growing up, actually, and of course then I had to meet his boyfriend. I went to this tiny private school, not the one you guys went to, but Dave and I still got to hang out and sometimes he’d tell me about his other friends from school but I didn’t remember that Terezi was one of them. God, it seems like ages ago…” He looked to Terezi. “Remember my friend Rose I was telling you about? She’s Dave’s sister. Twin, actually. I wonder if she knew you…” Vriska jutted back into the conversation with grandeur, making it obvious that John needed to stop talking. 

“Anyway, yes, good, whatever the fuck he said. Now back to my story of how she fucking lived and died.” John looked down again. Yeah, he really shouldn’t have interrupted. Obviously, Vriska knew way more than either he or Terezi did. He thought maybe offering his two cents would jog some sort of memory, but what were his two cents compared to Vriska’s millionaire status. He shut up and let her continue, resolving to not speak up again until necessary. “ANYWAY. One day she and I were talking about romance and shit. She had her problems with gay boys. I had my problems, too. I had dated girls and guys at this point. Maryam, Peixes, Nitram… Haha, oh fucking god. This one guy, he and I broke up and then got back together way too many times.” At the name Maryam John wanted to speak up again. Kanaya Maryam? Rose’s girlfriend? But he knew it would be better to stay silent for now. Vriska cleared her throat and continued. 

“So yeah. That night was…intense. We were talking about love and whatnot and… God, it’s so hard to remember who kissed who first. It was great. We kissed and kissed and then from that night on we were dating.” She looked down, and grumbled to herself, before repeating herself loudly enough for all to hear. “She died on our third anniversary.” John looked to Vriska, and then to Terezi. He gave Terezi a look of pity, something that said ‘wow that’s so sad I’m so fucking sorry.’ She seemed to catch his look, whether she could decipher what kind of look it was or not, and turned away from him with a blush. What did she make of this development, he wondered?

They’d both listened intently throughout the rest of the explanation, never interrupting once. That honestly sounded like something that would happen. She didn't know what to make of it, though. She was kind of just silent, arms and legs both crossed. Her mind was a complete scattered mess, trying to figure out herself what she made of the new information. Theoretically, it wasn't much to take in, but to Terezi, this was literally her entire life. This is all she had. And she held onto it. 

It took her a while, but she finally managed to come up with some coherent thoughts. So they both had a long dating history of gay boys, were childhood friends from the age of foetus, and started dating near the end of high school when they finally got fed up with said gay boys. That was pretty much all she'd managed to gather from that information spewing. Whatever the practical side of this conversation had spawned, she could still feel her unbeating heart twinge at her words. She could tell she still felt something, even in death. They must've been something pretty special. 

"So... Not to ignore everything you just said, because I have absolutely no clue of how to respond, but... John called Rose up before and said we were going to see her tomorrow to get this sorted out - I mean, see if she can figure out why I'm still here. At this point I can only assume it's because of either you or John - and him only because he's living in my house now. I kind of want to believe I came back as a ghost for you but there could be a number of reasons. Maybe I held a grudge against somebody?” She turned her head to John while she said that, as if she were trying to imply something. Apparently she hadn’t known John though, so that was out of the question. 

John furrowed his brow. He had to applaud her for keeping her head on straight and managing to make a logical observation in the midst of all these emotional theatrics going on.  
“In any case – I think you should come with us. You know more about me than anyone does,” She had a point.

John thought about her idea. Yeah, bringing Vriska to Rose would be a good idea. Together the four of them could work something out. He frowned again when he realized that she was implying something. What, was she trying to suggest she held a grudge against him? That didn't make sense. After all he hadn't ever met her...had he? Augh. It was hard to think about this. He shuffled in his chair, cleared his throat, and looked to Vriska. "Yeah, uh, if you're okay with that, you can probably talk to her. She's good, she can probably help us figure something out..."

Vriska was quiet for a while before nodding. "Yeah, okay. I don't have work tomorrow so I'm free," She sent Terezi a glance, mixed emotions filling her. Terezi felt the same, but she couldn't give her a look. Not when she couldn't see her. And as far as she knew, John still hadn't figured that out yet. Or if he had, he definitely hadn't said anything. Terezi plastered a smile on her face and stood up, still keeping her arms crossed. 

"Okay," she began, her grin widening. "We'll be here tomorrow at ten AM to pick you up, be ready," She declared. It was kind of stupid how she was making the decisions, seeing as how she was literally a floating spirit embodiment on the other female's dead girlfriend - but hey this is Homestuck, who needs logic?

John smirked at Terezi's confidence. It was sort of funny and annoying at the same time how she was so resolved to make decisions for him. She was lucky that it was the decision he was going to make anyway. He stood up, and brushed off his pants as if they had gotten dirty while he sat. 

"Okay, yes, we'll get you then," he said. It was funny. ‘We.’ He and Terezi. Working as a team. How crazy was that? He looked to Terezi and smiled.  
"That time's okay with me," said Vriska. 

"Good," chirped John. "Tomorrow it is then." He looked Vriska, and then to Terezi. "I know she'll be glad to see you. This is her kinda thing."

"Yes, you've said that," Terezi tilted her head as if she were rolling her eyes. Even if he hadn't said those words exactly, she had gathered it by the way he talked about her and her interests. He kind of doesn't shut up. 

Hmm... So did this make them hearts now? No wait, that was Vriska. Shit, can you have two people in a quadrant? Or in separate quadrants? Hmm, separate quadrants sounds legit. She wasn't sure about two people filling one quadrant, though. Probably not. So was she still spades for John or was that in the past? I dunno, he could be gay. He looks pretty gay. She had a history of gay boys. John could very well be gay. She sighed softly to herself, wrapped up in her own inner conflict for the millionth time.  
"Guess we'll see you tomorrow then. Let's get out of here, asshat," she started for the door, her form fading with every step.

He sighed. He looked to Vriska and gave a shrug. "Geez, the demanding on this one!" He jested to her before leaving. Vriska laughed, the first positive reaction she'd had to him yet. Success! 

He followed Terezi out to his car, and got in the driver’s side. She appeared in the passenger seat next to him. Huh. She didn't fly today. 

She turned to him suddenly and asked "so are you gay or what?" Wow. Okay. What the fuck? What led her to that conclusion? The fact that everyone else on the planet seemed to be? Okay, fair point. 

"Uh...no? I'm straight. Quite straight. I'm not a homosexual, purely hetero. They used to call me Purely Hetero John." He joked. Terezi's lip straightened to a line. 

"Hm," she said, before floating up through the roof. He frowned, and resolved to drive home in his confusion.

Terezi followed from above, smiling softly to herself. She didn't know why, but that awkward little conversation they had filled her with some sense of triumph and security. She still hated him though. No doubt. Definitely still spades. Come on Terezi, at least call them by the fancy names. It makes you seem a lot smarter instead of just ‘Hey I feel spades for you.’ Caliginous. Black. Whatever. Just don't call it spades anymore, Jesus. 

They came to a stop outside John's house and Terezi was the first one inside, sitting again in the corner. While John slept, she simply sat there, now grateful she didn't have to sleep so that she could have some time to reflect. She had a lot of shit to think about.

John slept well that night. He didn't really know why, but he was sort of more peaceful than he'd been before. He woke up the next day and looked at his clock. Shit! Nine O'Clock! He was supposed to be at Vriska's at ten! He jumped out of bed, and rushed to throw his clothes on- completely forgetting the presence of the spectre in the corner. He rushed to get himself ready and, in a matter of minutes, was ready to leave. 

"Terezi!" He called out, as if he was some sort of dad collecting his kids for a trip to the zoo.

Terezi simply stood up and walked over to where he was, but hey brilliant idea to clean your glasses last night John - now where the fuck is she? Standing right behind you? In front? Already at Vriska's? In the bathroom? Do ghosts even use the bathroom? Sigh. 

She stood literally right in front of him, arms crossed and practically screaming at him about how much of an idiot he is. After a little while she gave up and went on ahead of him, hoping to be able to contact Vriska on her own, somehow. She hoped he'd gather his wits about himself and go on ahead.

It took John a minute before he realize that his incense was no longer in his glasses. He struck a match and lit another stick, hoping to see her. When he didn't, and it was getting to the point where he would have to leave, he stuck the smoking stick in his shirt pocket (what a wonderful bright idea) and called out, "Hey! Terezi? I'm leaving for Vriska's, feel free to meet me there." He waited another moment. Perhaps she was trying to spook him? She did enjoy it when he got spooked. He guessed she wasn't going to go with him. 

He was a little disappointed, he supposed. Not that he would ever admit it. The past few times he'd gone out, he'd known she was flying right by him. He went out to his car and began the drive to Vriska's.

And yes - she was already there. What they didn't anticipate was that Vriska could be able to see her perfectly, regardless of the situation. The only times she couldn't were times like last night when Terezi focused all her energy on being invisible - on being not there. But now, now after careful analysis and making several conclusions over the course of one night, she'd decided she wanted to be seen. She and Terezi were having a peaceful conversation when John got to the door, causing Vriska to stand up in a huff. 

"About time," she whined when she saw who was there.

John crossed his arms. "Well I spent a while looking for someone who was supposed to go with me." He huffed. 

Terezi cackled. "Yeah I wasn't aware I needed to check in with the teacher before leaving the classroom," she sassed. 

John frowned. "If this was school you'd be expelled by now," was the best he could come up with. "So yeah. Hey Vriska, it's good to see you again," he waved to her. "Terezi, I see you every day, so whatever. It's never nice to see you. 'Cause you're so ugly." He tried to be clever, and then realized that while Terezi might enjoy their usual banter, Vriska was not used to it and may take offense to his playful jab at her late girlfriend. Vriska glared daggers at him. Yeah. Proooooooobably not the time. 

She scoffed, and placed her hand on her hip. "Yeah right she's ugly. As if my standards could be that low." Terezi let out a laugh. Ah yes. Hate on one and love on the other. It seemed right. John laughed as well, easing out any existing tension. 

"Well, Vriska, if you'd like to get in my car I can take us down to Rose's house." 

"I call shotgun!" Terezi yelled. 

"You don't even have a butt!" John shouted back. 

"I so do," said Terezi, "it's nice. Vriska would know." Vriska laughed, and made her way to the passenger side door. 

"She speaks the truth, Egbert. She has the ass to rule all asses." John blushed a little at the discussion of her apparently nice ass, but laughed anyway. Huh. He'd never noticed. It was kind of nice. Kind of round and - oh shut the fuck up John!!! She's DEAD and her girlfriend is RIGHT THERE! 

He shook the thought away from his head, and continued to his car. Vriska took shotgun, but Terezi resolved to "sit" in her lap anyway with a "hey I said I called shotgun!"  
Vriska turned to her lovingly and replied, "We can share it." John shook his head and laughed at these useless lesbians. Bisexuals? Yeah. He was gonna go with that. Since Vriska had said they'd dated guys and... Shit why was he even thinking about this? His mind was going to all the wrong places. He blushed again, as he started the car and drove off.  
Terezi and Vriska talked, surprisingly comfortable with each other considering Terezi couldn't remember her, and she smiled and laughed - the most John had ever seen her do so. 

Eventually they came to a stop outside Rose's house and Vriska ushered the other girl off her lap before getting up, even though she could go straight through her. Must've been some sort of attempt to convince herself that Terezi was still alive - actually there instead of just a floating spirit. In any case, Terezi complied without questioning it and placed both hands on her hips as she floated upward, taking in the house. This would be good. She smiled to herself, proud that she had managed to find someone who knew her - dated her no less - and now someone who could possibly return her to her former glory. Of course, that was probably just wishful thinking. But she'd gotten her hopes up now, and something told her Vriska was not going to stand for being turned away.

John got out of the car, following the two ladies. He made his way up the steps to Rose's front door. It was a really pretty house. Rose wasn't rich, exactly, but she was more than capable of decorating what she had. He rang the bell to the side of the elegant wooden door, and in a few moments Rose was greeting them. She opened the door, and gave an all-original Rose-flavoured smile when she saw them. 

She was darker, but with stunning white-blonde hair that didn't seem like it could be natural, but hey, judging by the rest of her attire she seemed like a witch of some sort. She wore an elegant black dress with purple details, some sort of horrifying squid monster upon her chest. John always loved those squid monsters she wore. They were kinda cool, and when she talked about horror stuff she was always so passionate. 

"John," she said in greeting. "It's good to see you again." She pulled him into a small hug, before releasing and stepping back. As soon as she saw Vriska, her smile creased to a frown. "I see you've brought a guest." She then looked straight at Terezi, and her smile returned with increased vigour. "Two guests!" She stepped back into her home, and gestured for them to follow. "Come in, the three of you. I don't bite." She looked back at them with a wicked smirk. "Well. I won't bite you, anyway." She playfully flicked her tongue across her lips. John snickered. Classic Rose. She was always a great friend to have around. She led them into a nice room, decked out in tones of purple and black much like her outfit. "Have a seat, if you'd like," she said as she gestured to the love seat and chairs gracing the room.

Terezi and Vriska went straight for the love seat - more Terezi, but upon seeing her enthusiasm, Vriska smiled and joined her, leaving John for the empty chairs that were plush enough to drown in. They were all silent for a little while before Terezi, a lot more comfortable about everything than she had been a day or so ago, spoke up. Being near Vriska kind of gave her a sense of security and confidence that she didn't know how to explain.

She knew how to explain her situation, though. "So I don't know how much John has told you about my situation, but long story short I want to be mortal again," Her voice was strong, commanding, and gravelly as always. Vriska, John and Rose were all a little surprised at this request, thinking it more than a little ridiculous, but none of them really had the courage to stand up and tell her that it was impossible. But then again, Rose was the only one who knew whether or not it was. Terezi waited in silence, arms crossed on the couch as the anticipated reply took its own sweet time to meet her ears.

"Ooh," Rose winced. "That...May be a hard one. Usually ghosts come around here asking how they can ascend- or descend, in some cases- to the afterlife. Not many come around asking for Get Out of Death Free cards..." She frowned, and went for the elaborate bookshelf up against the far wall. She perused her collection for a moment, and then selected one book from the shelf, and began flipping through it. "Difficult, very difficult, but impossible? I don't think so..." She sat down in the chair next to John's, as she continued flipping through her book. Suddenly, she looked up at the two women on the couch. "And- hey, don't go around telling people you've found a cure for death. 'Cause then the entire planet will come rushing through my door. Plus, not every death results in a ghost, only ones that do even have a chance of coming back..." She pursed her lip as she continued flipping, finally finding the page she was looking for. "Ah-ha!" She exclaimed. "Yeah, just as I thought. Whether you're trying to go to the afterlife or come back to normal life, the first step is always the same..." She trailed off. 

"And what's that?" John asked, genuinely curious. He had no idea Terezi was trying to come back to life, and the idea excited him more than he would have liked to admit. What better way to form a... Friendship, he guessed... Than having one party haunt the other as a ghost? 

Rose soon answered his question. "Well, like I said, not every death results in a ghost. That means we have to find out why...what was your name again?" She looked to Terezi.  
"Terezi," she offered. Rose's nose wrinkled as she was lost momentarily in deep thought. Something about that name was very familiar...oh. Oh! Of course. Terezi had dated Rose's brother once. Rose pocketed that information for later, making a mental reminder to call Dave and ask him about her to perhaps gain further knowledge on the case. 

She kept her discovery secret for now, if the rest of them hadn't figured it out themselves, anyway. "Yes, we need to find out why Terezi is a ghost at all instead of just wasting away in the afterlife," she finally continued.

"I assumed it was because I was attached to John at first, but then I found out he's just living in my old house so that's out of the question since he didn't even know me before the accident. Then he had this brilliant idea,” She emphasized the words with sarcasm. "To search my name online, and that came up with this whole article of what'd happened, and that's how I found out I'd been dating this chick right here," she gestured with a nod of her head to said chick, who smirked, her arms crossed. 

She kind of wanted to reach over and hold her close, like she always had only a few months ago, but held back, knowing she'd just be disappointed again when her arms went through her. 

"She knew a lot more than the two of us combined, so we talked last night and decided to bring her over today since she's probably going to be a lot more helpful than John and I combined," Terezi sighed softly, almost like she was disappointed. Progress was definitely slow, but she was going to figure everything out today and- at the news that it was indeed possible to return to her mortal form - her hopes shot right up through the ceiling, trailing blue sparks and rainbow lights. 

Her emotions were kind of a mess, but she'd learned by now that there was no use voicing any of it when no one was around to hear. That was just something that sat with her while she was a wandering spirit. Of course, with no one around it was always all the more easy to let loose and scream everything out all the time – but she was not that kind of person. She preferred to stay calm, dormant until somebody was around to witness her rage. In a way, it let her build up all the stress and whatever else to the point where she would snap, and it made it all the more satisfying when she finally did. But for now, she was calm. She'd hold out. Okay, enough of that. "Either way," she continued. "I feel like we're going to be here for a while. Because I'm not leaving until we get this shit sorted out."

“Alright, then, let’s get to it,” said Rose as she picked up a notebook from the intricate glass coffee table in the middle of the room. She opened to a clean page, and readied her pen. “Let’s do this interview style. The questions will be directed at Terezi, and you will be the one to answer them as best you can.” She looked to the woman in question. Then, she continued, “However, as the undead are known to not remember much about their lives, your answers may not give the full story, if any story at all.” Next she looked to Vriska. “This is where you come in. As her significant other, it will be your job to expand on the answers that she gives. You should be able to offer much better of an explanation than she can.” She scribbled down some words in her notebook, before looking to John. “John,” she said, “You can interject if you have anything important to say, too.” John smiled at the fact that he was being appreciated instead of just cast aside in the discussion. Rose straightened, before glancing down at her paper one more time, and then looking to Terezi. “Okay, first question: what is your full name?”

"Terezi Pyrope," she answered confidently without missing a beat. She was very relieved that this was finally happening, and looking forward to the end result.

Rose nodded to herself as she jotted down the name. “Next: Terezi, what do you remember about your family? Who raised you, how you grew up, parents siblings, other relatives, home life?”

"... I remember a sister," she said after a while, frowning. 

"Latula," Vriska clarified. 

"Yeah, that was it," Terezi confirmed, smiling a little.

She wrote down, “Latula,” on the paper as a note, before asking, “And what was Latula’s age in relation to yours?” Terezi frowned, not remembering such specific information. 

“I…think she was older?” she guessed. 

“Yes,” confirmed Vriska. “By four years.” 

“And she is Pyrope as well?” Rose questioned. 

“Yes,” Terezi and Vriska answered in unison. Rose added “Pyrope” next to Latula’s name on the page, for clarification. Rose mentally added Latula Pyrope to a possible list of people to talk to, right under Dave. Hopefully they would get enough from the three people in the room already and not need other sources, but who could say at this point? 

“All right,” said Rose. “Just a sister? Any other siblings? Your parents, legal guardians?”

"I think I had a Mum...." She frowned again. 

"Yeah, you used to call her Mumza," Vriska giggled. 

"Why is all this stuff coming back to me now, though? I couldn't remember jack shit before you started asking me," Terezi sighed and Vriska just slung an arm around her, surprised to find the girl's body half-solid. Only half. It was like moving through quicksand, really thick and really awkward. She pulled her arm back, but Terezi felt it. "The fuck was that?" she quirked a brow, confused.

Rose raised a brow in response. She looked between the two of them. "I may have an answer to both of those questions," she said. "As for why you're remembering more things suddenly, it's probably because you're on a roll."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look who decided to update. Found the unfinished chapter in my stash and decided to finish it. I suck at deadlines.


End file.
